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本文由尚友原创或整理 1 Exercise 25
Since 1953, many experimental attempts to synthesize the chemical constituents of life under "primitive Earth conditions" have demonstrated that a variety of the complex molecules currently making up living organisms could have been present in the early ocean and atmosphere, with only one limitation: such molecules are synthesized far less readily when oxygen-containing compounds dominate the atmosphere. Therefore some scientists postulate that the Earth's earliest atmosphere, unlike that of today, was dominated by hydrogen, methane, and ammonia. From these studies, scientists have concluded that the surface of the primitive Earth was covered with oceans containing the molecules fundamental to life. Although, at present, scientists cannot explain how these relatively small molecules combined to produce larger, more complex molecules, some scientists have precipitously ventured hypotheses that attempt to explain the development, from lager molecules, of the earliest self-duplicating organisms. (138 words) 1. According to the passage, which of the following can be inferred about the process by which the chemical constituents of life were synthesized under primitive Earth conditions? (A) The synthesis is unlikely to occur under current atmospheric conditions (B) The synthesis is common in modern laboratories. (C)The synthesis occurs more readily in the atmosphere than in the ocean. (D)The synthesis easily produces the most complex organic molecules. (E)The synthesis is accelerated by the presence of oxygen-containing compounds. 2.It can be inferred from the passage that "some scien- tists" assume which of the following concerning " larger, more complex molecules" (A) The earliest atmosphere was forward primarily of these molecules. (B) Chemical processes involving these molecules proceeded much more slowly under primitive Earth conditions. (C) The presence of these molecules would necessarily
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本文由尚友原创或整理 2 precede the existence of simple organisms. (D) Experimental techniques will never be sufficiently sophisticated to produce in the laboratory simple organisms from these chemical constituents. (E) Explanations could easily be developed to explain how simple molecules combined to form these more complex ones. 阅读1： 参考翻译： 1953年以来，科学家们做了大量实验尝试在“原始地球条件下”合成生命的化学成分，但是，没有任何一项实验能制造出哪怕最简单生物体的复杂成分。虽然如此，他们还是证明了当前构成生物体的复杂分子能够存在于早期的海洋和大气中，只是有一个局限：当含氧化合物在大气中居主导的情况下，一些元素的合成极不容易。因此，一些科学家们假定远古大气层不像今天这样，而是由氢气，甲烷和氨气组成。 从这些研究中，科学家们得出结论：远古地球表面被含有生命所需基本物质的海洋所覆盖。虽然，目前科学家们还不能解释相对较小的分子如何结合起来产生出一些相对较大较复杂的分子，一些科学家们仍然迫不及待的提出了一种假说，试图解释最早的那些自我繁殖的生物体是如何从这些较大分子发展而来的。 Q1：下面哪句能从原始地球条件下，构成生命的化学成分的合成过程中推断出来？ 解析：A 正确。此种合成不大可能存在于当前大气条件下。定位至文中line 7- 8，以氧为主的大气中不可能实现。 B 此种合成在现代实验室中很常见。 无 C 此种合成更易存在于大气中胜过海洋。 无比较。 D 此种合成易于产生最复杂分子。 most 推不出。 E 氧化物的存在能加速此种合成。 无。 Q2：对于“较大较复杂的分子”，有些科学家设想了哪一点： 解析：A 最早的大气主要有这些分子组成。 推不出。 B 产生这些分子的化学过程在原始条件下演化很慢。 无。 C 正确。 这些分子的存在会推动简单生物的产生。末尾句：一些科学家们仍然迫不及待的提出了一种假说，试图解释最早的那些自我繁殖的生物体是如何从这些较大分子发展而来的。这些人显然持该选项观点。 D 实验室研究永远不可能从这些化合物中造出简单生物来。never太过分，知识现在没有解决。 E 很容易解释简单分子如何合在一起构成这样的复杂分子。 现在还不能解释。 It is frequently assumed that the mechanization of work has a revolutionary effect on the lives of the people who operate the new machines and on the society into which the machines have been introduced. For example, it has been suggested that the employment of women in industry took them out of the household, their traditional sphere, and fundamentally altered their position in society. In the nineteenth century, when women began to enter factories, Jules Simon, a French politician, warned that by doing so, women would give up their femininity. Friedrich Engels,
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本文由尚友原创或整理 3 however, predicted that women would be liberated from the "social, legal, and economic subordination" of the family by technological developments that made possible the recruitment of "the whole female sex into public industry." Observers thus differed concerning the social desirability of mechanization's effects, but they agreed that it would transform women's lives. Historians, particularly those investigating the history of women, now seriously question this assumption of transforming power. They conclude that such dramatic technological innovations as the spinning jenny, the sewing machine, the typewriter, and the vacuum cleaner have not resulted in equally dramatic social changes in women's economic position or in the prevailing evaluation of women's work. The employment of young women in textile mills during the Industrial Revolution was largely an extension of an older pattern of employment of young, single women as domestics. It was not the change in office technology, but rather the separation of secretarial work, previously seen as an apprenticeship for beginning managers, from administrative work that in the 1880's created a new class of "dead-end" jobs, thenceforth considered "women's work." The increase in the numbers of married women employed outside the home in the twentieth century had less to do with the mechanization of housework and an increase in leisure time for these women than it did with their own economic necessity and with high marriage rates that shrank the available pool of single women workers, previously, in many cases, the only women employers would hire. Women's work has changed considerably in the past 200 years, moving from the household to the office or the factory, and later becoming mostly white-collar instead of blue-collar work. Fundamentally, however, the conditions under which women work have changed little since before the Industrial Revolution: the segregation of occupations by gender, lower pay for women as a group, jobs that require relatively low levels of skill and offer women little opportunity for advancement all persist, while women's household labor remains demanding. Recent historical investigation has led to a major revision of the notion that technology is always inherently revolutionary in its effects on society. Mechanization may even have slowed any change in the traditional position of women both in the labor market and in the home.
